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Darkstarrr discusses P2W politics in RMT and Trusted Traders get a discount!
blorpykins
Member RarePosts: 466
Start watching this video around the 37 minute mark and Darkstarr will admit that Markee Dragon gets a discount on everything he buys from them as part of their profit sharing agreement. But if you start watching from the 35 minute mark you'll hear Darkstarr talk about giving Twitch streamers store credit and steam keys.
There's also this where Markee Dragon suggests he works with developers; not entirely sure what that means but SotA is still in early development, I guess it could mean that he helps design things.
For a game that is all about RMT, I wonder why Markee Dragon is the only person that gets Trusted Trader status and a permanent discount. I wonder how RMT traders will respond to learning about the very real and very significant P2W advantages the Trusted Trader program actually gives.
There's also this where Markee Dragon suggests he works with developers; not entirely sure what that means but SotA is still in early development, I guess it could mean that he helps design things.
For a game that is all about RMT, I wonder why Markee Dragon is the only person that gets Trusted Trader status and a permanent discount. I wonder how RMT traders will respond to learning about the very real and very significant P2W advantages the Trusted Trader program actually gives.
![[Deleted User]](http://w8.vanillicon.com/v2/8fb1f3555cfe9a83f4bfa1bdfb5cb3d0.svg)
Comments
The genre needs to start cleansing itself of parasites like Garriott and Co.
~~ postlarval ~~
Let's hope it crash and burn really fast so it don't get any followers trying the same scam.
Mission accomplished...
TRUSTED TRADERS
Want another option for buying or selling your game items or accounts? Markee Dragon is an authorized Portalarium Trusted Trader and a business partner with Portalarium. Markee Dragon has our endorsement as a trustworthy and reputable partner, and a portion of all sales goes back to Portalarium to further the development of Shroud of the Avatar!
Portalarium and Trusted Traders work together to allow real money transactions for expired Shroud of the Avatar (SotA) items, and allow Trusted Traders to resell active SotA items. All consumer transactions will be directly between a Trusted Trader and Players. Portalarium will receive a percentage of real money transactions for expired items, and Portalarium will provide active items to Trusted Traders on an on-demand basis for resell. Portalarium promotes Trusted Traders as a sanctioned site for buying/selling/trading expired items and for reselling active items.
(NOTE: While we have complete trust in the security of transactions with Portalarium Trusted Traders, Portalarium is not responsible or liable in any way, to either party, for those transactions)"
The latest Cult Talking Point on Steam appears to be that if we don't appreciate bugs like this, we're just mindless WoW players who demand everything has AAA production values. The fact that Shroud has spent $18 MILLION so far and can't even reach basic playability standards is apparently a good thing; It shows how it's audience is open minded and reasonable rather than, for instance, losing track of basic standards of respect and development.
The RMT systems all work fine, needless to say. And whilst they can pretend you might, one day, get the pixies in game that will apparently make your life all twinkly and nice, the RMT works perfectly here and now, so fork that hard currency over.
So thank these players in making what we have today, pure class.
Release of the game has slipped back from "Story complete July 2017" to "Q2 2018" again, but that doesn't matter! Golden castles for single digit figure players! Where are they?!
My only problem would be illegitimate people who would use fraud tactics, or illega bots to gather items or currency however if someone is doing things 100% Legal, no afk, no cheats, and for example Plex allows discount and resell buying I do not mind at all.
Bring Back "Tablua Rasa"?
Streamers and websites get free copies and in many cases with expectations of positive reviews,although they will tell each other than then wink an eye.
Not long ago DB games paid a bunch of streamers to promote their H1Z1 and is VERY obvious watching twitch TV.
Quite often i see a crap game with a huge audience,so i click the game and then find a top name streamer is doing the game and why the numbers so big.Well when that streamer plays the game 1-2 days then never again,you know it is a paid endorsement and still to this day most are not posting it even though it is the law.I mean nobody rants and raves how great a game is then quits after 1-2 days.
I know for fact Angry Joe got his copy for free of Destiny but when he was streaming there was no posting as endorsed.I know because he came right out and said it,he was surprised they gave him a free copy after he dissed Destiny 1.
As for RMT affiliations,first saw that on a TV show many years ago,with some interesting questions being asked.Then recently a RMT kingpin says he offer partnerships wit the developers ,including having asked Blizzard but they turned him down.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The more money you invested the easier you had to influence future features. Money talk's big in this game and the claim they were listening to their community was a lie, they only listened to the high money funder's.
Disliking whales in this game is a lot like disliking the air you breathe.
Without whales this game wouldn't even exist. There wouldn't have been a funded kickstarter. The game wouldn't have continued years of funding. I know you understand this Jaanelle, I'm just making general social commentary here.
There are some that believe that would've been a good thing, that because they don't enjoy the game themselves, it's impossible to understand why other people would. There are some that see this "gold stuff" and only see elitism, which is an understandable reaction on some level. After all, if it takes 30k to obtain a giant golden castle, that's fairly elite! But that doesn't tell the whole story, in fact it doesn't even tell part of the story because it doesn't cost 30k to buy a golden castle, it costs 30k to buy 30k worth of stock in Portalarium and oh yeah you get a golden castle while you're at it. (that's a meaningful and significant difference that can only be ignored if you're promoting a narrative that ignores reality).
It's a difference that unfortunately doesn't translate well to joe average gamer. Have a crowd funded game? Well that means the money has to come from, ya know, the crowd.
The truth is, I don't plan to use any of this golden stuff in-game because it doesn't fit my character backstory. I'm going to sell it off. I just wanted the stock. In part because I wanted to help fund the game and because I think the people behind Portalarium have a lot of experience with building up companies and then selling them for a profit down the road. It's a gamble, but it's one that I was willing to take. As for selling the gold stuff, I'll probably just make it available on my in-game vendor giving "whoever" a chance to get it using regular old gold. Of course you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. So people can say "pay2win!11!11!!" because I get gold in return for stuff I bought with real money. The alternative being that I could sell it for store credit (which is what I've done with most of the things I knew I wouldn't use), thus generating more funds for SOTA, which in turn helps keep development going (ya know, from the crowd) and also grants me the special benefit of being called a whale and spat upon from the peanut gallery. Awesome!
Again, I get it. Some people don't like this game, they wish it would've been something else. They wish it would've been what they thought it should've been. They wish it wasn't full of gold castles, it was focused more on their playingstyle (single player), and the words used in the kickstarter would've been as binding as their rigid interpretation of those words. But that's not where we are, and there are good reasons for that. Mainly because this is a crowd funded game, and the crowd, at least the one still here continuing to fund this game and support it as both playing and paying customers are generally patient and understanding of the realities of game development. It's a slow and sometimes frustrating process, but it sure beats having a publisher that insists on making yet another cookie cutter wow clone that will never have meaningful updates or take community feedback seriously.
Oh well. Have no fear Jaanelle. Not everyone will see your golden home and sneer. Whenever I see one, I'll just think that it belongs to someone that helped make this game possible. That's a big deal to me on a personal level, because sure I could put down $30 on a game that might entertain me for a few months until the next $30 game or expansion hit the virtual shelves. But I've been doing that for years and I've been unsatisfied for at least that long. Nothing here is perfect of course, but the one thing I can count on is that as long as the game exists it gets better month to month and the development is not geared solely towards making the most money, it's geared towards making the best game possible with the time and resources we have. I don't see that as elitism, I see it as a gift to anyone that would accept it for what it actually is. A crowd funded game.
I like this part -
Quote - "That's a big deal to me on a personal level, because sure I could put down $30 on a game that might entertain me for a few months until the next $30 game or expansion hit the virtual shelves. But I've been doing that for years and I've been unsatisfied for at least that long. Nothing here is perfect of course, but the one thing I can count on is that as long as the game exists it gets better month to month and the development is not geared solely towards making the most money, it's geared towards making the best game possible with the time and resources we have" - end quote.
Hope he is satisfied with the so far progress. I wonder if he will get his invested money back?
Another gem -
Quote - "It's a slow and sometimes frustrating process, but it sure beats having a publisher that insists on making yet another cookie cutter wow clone that will never have meaningful updates or take community feedback seriously. - end quote.
Listening to feedback from these whales really had a positive effect on this game - sarcasm off.
So many paragraphs, all just to illustrate that if you redefine "crowd" to mean "me" you get a "crowd funded game" that only appeals to people like him.
He recognises the game wouldn't be around if it weren't for people like him; but he can't bring himself to honestly face the reason for that, which is because it's bad game design that true crowds of people don't actually want, combined with "I have more money than sense, and won't stop funding it".
Nope, far better to try and inflate his own ego and say it's because people like him are more patient, more understanding of game design, and that everyone else left just because they're somehow inferior to world striding capitalist colossi like him and Janelle.
All of which raises the question of how we got blatantly superior products like Ultima previously, without any "crowd" engagement at all.
Meanwhile, he's going to sell off his Golden Castle, or maybe convert it to Add On Store credit... which he then lectures us on how it's about helping the game. How? Who are you going to sell too? You've driven everyone away with this unchecked RMT, you idiot. Even if you can find someone in game whose greed for status is still so strong they'd buy the castle, even at a huge discount, how does Portalarium gain support from that transaction?
We've already seen you and people like you won't quit no matter how bleak the future looks. You were already a captured market. Who do you think you're attracting with this horrendous funding model?
And how does "Store Credit" help the developers...? Don't you even know how funding works? If that credit had been created by spending real currency, it's worth something to Portalarium; but converting it from digital item to digital currency to digital items again raises nothing more for them.
This remember is the man who constantly lectures us on how we don't understand markets... a man who exemplifies "Socialism For The Rich" by endlessly funding failing businesses run by his buddies.